


Best friend (rewritten)

by Fanficologist



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22145914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanficologist/pseuds/Fanficologist
Summary: “Emma, wake up.” “It’s not good to sleep so much during the day, you know?”
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	1. Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She said they were tears of the sky.

‘There have been a lot of rains lately.’

  
It always felt like an invisible hand grasping my heart, watching something so reminiscent of a happy memory, yet also serving as a constant reminder that you likely had lost the chance to experience it forever.  
  
Emma used to really love rains like this – a heavy Summer rain that came and went as it pleased, the kind of downpour that came unbiddenly during a scorchingly sunny day and turned everything into misshapen grey silhouettes on a background curtain of gathered cloud. There would always be a certain musky smell, one that was neither pungent nor pleasant, emanating from the dry asphalt roads and concrete sidewalks that pricked at your nose. The rain would leave as abruptly as it came; lingering in its wake a refreshing feeling. The air was a little bit cleaner, and your body would feel like it had become lighter as well. It was as if someone had opened a shower at full blast to wash away all the dirt and grime of the city and the people within.  
  
At least it was how she would describe it.  
  
Funny thing, really. I had caught myself emulating Emma a lot these days. Having thoughts that she would have. Doing things that she would do. Maybe it was my way of coping – fooling myself into believing, that everything was okay, that we were still together like before, watching the Summer rains.  
  
It was one of her hobbies that I often got roped into – just sitting down and watching the countless drops of water falling onto the ground. On the landing of her door. Under the canopy of a closed convenience store. Behind the glass wall of our favorite ice cream parlor. We would sit side by side, and she would watch as thousands of white bubbles formed and popped on the ground with a content smile. I would run my machine gun mouth about nonsensical things. About my latest wiki walk. About the latest rumors and conspiracy that the PHO netizens had cooked up. About how that C-rating villain could potentially take over Boston through the power of munchkinry. And Emma would patiently listen to my ramblings without a word of complaint, resting her head against mine and tracing circles on the fabric of her skirt. Sometimes Emma would hang her bare hands and feet out and let the droplets fall onto her skin, pooling in her palm and flowing in between her fingers like small waterfalls, paying no attention to the occasional winds that splashed ice-cold water over her hair and face.  
  
It could have been the two of us now, sitting under the bus stop and watching the rain, together in our little world. I never really shared Emma’s love for the weather, at least back then. My hair often got all frizzy when it rained, and since dad worked pretty late every day, raining meant holing up in my room browsing PHO with our crappy dial-up connection. The local library would offer miles better internet service for free, and if there was ever a time where there was nothing of interest online I could always enjoy myself in the Earth-Aleph import section. To think that my greatest question in life at that time was how Armsmaster could stack up against that Stark guy. It all seemed so silly, so foolish now. I used to hate rains with a passion, but I loved seeing Emma as she watched the rain, so I guess it all balanced out.  
  
The bus skidded to a stop, splashing water on the tip of my shoes. Bracing the thin curtain of rain, I threw my old backpack on my shoulder and climbed through the opened doors. I reached into the pocket of my coat and pulled out the bus pass, showing it to the bald man in a blue uniform, and walked my way to the back of the vehicle. It was a petty habit of mine – sitting in the very back seats where you were less likely to be asked (or ordered) to give your seat to the elderly. I rested my head against the glass window, feeling the vibration of the bus engine and the drumming sound of a thousand raindrops against the other side of the panel. The vehicle must be pretty old since some water did leak through and collected in the sliding track at the bottom of the window.  
  
The bus cut through the rain as I watch the water streaking in various patterns on the glass.

\---***---

‘Brocton Bay General Hospital’  
  
Or at least it was what the letters over the entrance would read.  
  
‘I didn’t like hospitals’ was what I would say in a polite setting. The truth was that I absolutely despised the place. I knew it was petty and irrational, but I couldn’t muster any love for the place that only ever took away people I loved. The mother who I loved and admired, and now the friend who felt like a sister in all but blood. The building felt more like a purgatory manifested through these tainted glasses of mine. The walls were painted a dull white like there was a thin layer of dust and grime that no one ever cared to wipe away. The hallways felt stuffy with thick glass panels that never opened and a pervasive smell of antiseptic that hung in the air and pricked at your nose. Stepping through the automated doors felt like entering a different world deprived of all colors and happiness, and the sky turned a depressing gray or purple through the tinted windows.  
  
Yet I was here for a purpose, and only that thought kept me from walking out and never looking back. Take a deep breath. In. And out. I fixed the straps of the backpack on my shoulder one more time and stepped forward.  
  
Twenty steps to the elevator. Stand to the side. Wait for the electronic counter to go down. The man paid no heed when he bumped my shoulder on the way out.  
  
There was a brief sensation of dizziness every time the elevator ascended. I was slowly pushed to the back of the car as more and more people poured in, even those that wanted to go down but were too lazy to wait for the return trip. The sensation of being squeezed in an enclosed space and periodically launched upward for the short distance between floors was uncomfortable, but I endured until the mechanical voice finally announced the floor that was my destination.  
  
The metal doors slid open. An old woman grumbled as I tried to wriggle my way out of the overcrowded space.  
  
It had become an automated process at this point. The monotonous routine helped me ignore all the unsettling things that caught the eyes on the way and numbed whatever inadvertent feelings they elicited.  
  
A floor that was neither at the top nor the bottom, sitting innocuously in between all other specialized floors of the building. The winding hallway that looped into a full circle. The rooms on the left with people tossing and turning in their sleep or staring at the dull white ceiling and counting the waterdrop in their IV bag. The glass wall on the right looking at the atrium in the center of the building, with the sun casting rays of filtered blue light onto the floor.  
  
Was it actually relaxing for people to sit in the small flower garden below, or would they also feel like they were trapped at the bottom of a well, looking helplessly at the tiny patch of sky above?  
  
It was on this very floor, the place for patients ‘awaiting further medical advancement’. They had called it that once upon a time, or so I had heard from the grumpy elderly residents. It was a place for people with terminal diseases to spend the rest of their days if they didn’t want to burden their family. A convenient for society to shove the damned out of sight. Now though, with Panacea around, fewer and fewer people remained on the floor until there were only the nurses left with a handful of unfortunate souls with brain diseases that the doctors had not yet found an answer to.  
  
407\. The brass plate above the wooden door stared at me in silent judgment. It was a single patient with facilities closer to that of a small apartment than a hospital room, the kind of room people with money to spare for much better care and treatment.  
  
I wanted to just curl up in a ball in the silent hallway. Guilt and anguish rose like a black stone in my throat. I want to gasp for air, but my lungs refused to work. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. I wanted to walk away, but my legs wouldn’t move from their spot, as if there was an invisible chain shackling my limbs to the door. A nursed passing by looked at me with a confused expression, but ultimately moved on with nary a word. Slowly, I reached out and turned the doorknob while fixing what I hoped was a cheerful smile on my face.  
  
Tick tock tick tock went the mechanical alarm clock on the dresser. The same one I had given Emma’s as a birthday present.  
  
Emma’s room was silent, as it had been yesterday and the day before that. The glass door to the balcony was left ajar, the permanently closed curtain blew slightly in the light breeze. Light spilled through the fabric’s edge onto the floor yet never reached the foot of the bed. She had insisted on keeping it open for air circulation even though the room had an AC unit installed. Emma had always complained about air-conditioners. She rarely used the one in her room at home and never left the temperature below 28 degrees if she ever did. Any colder and she would spot a runny nose in the morning. Emma had always had weirdly mundane preferences like that despite coming from a pretty well-off family.  
  
Emma herself was laid on the white bed; a bleached sheet covered her whole body to just below the chin. She was sleeping, just like any other time I had come to visit. The doctor had said Emma’s condition was normal and she could be released any time she or the family wished, but would she ever be the same Emma ever again. Would we be able to go to Winslow together like we had promised? Would I ever be dragged by my best friend to the mall for cloth shoppings, giggle together while making weird mixtures of ice cream flavors, or collect odd trinkets during summer camp ever again? Would I be able to sit and watch the rain with her again?  
  
Or would she spend her days like this, drifting between the border of dreams and wakefulness?  
  
I was angry. At Zoe for being the ever-silent housewife that never did anything on her own account, faithfully following the words of her husband without a question about the fate of their youngest child. At Alan for pretending that everything was alright, that so long as he buried himself with work and handed wads of cash to the medical staff everything was going to resolve themselves. At Anne for abandoning her sister, her actual, flesh and blood sister, to her fate with nothing but a long sigh and a goodbye to empty air before she took the coach back to her uni. But ultimately, I was angry at myself for having such selfish thoughts. For taking my frustration on people who were trying to cope with their own grief. For thinking that it shouldn’t fall solely on me to care for my best friend.  
  
“Hey, Emma. It’s me, Taylor”  
  
No response.  
  
“Emma, wake up.” I placed my hand on her shoulder over the sheet. “It’s not good to sleep so much during the day, you know?”  
  
A soft groan. As best a response as I could ever get. Maybe it was for the best, leaving Emma to enjoy the peace inside her own mind rather the facing the waking nightmares of realities. Maybe it would be better for everyone involved that Emma never opened her eyes again. Blissful ignorance and all that.  
  
Sometimes it felt too much like making trips to visit my mother’s grave.  
  
Sometimes I wondered if it would have been better for Emma to have died back then. I wanted to believe that it would have been better for her to be gone forever, rather than living as an empty husk that barely responded to anything anymore. My best friend. The girl with weird hobbies and an exotic charm that drew people in. The girl whose image I was forever chasing after like a lost traveler chasing a rain cloud in the desert. Would it be better if the cloud dispersed, or if the traveler continued to walk the scorching sand waiting for a rain that might never come? All those horrible thoughts, only to justify my own helplessness.  
  
“I even brought you a gift.” The forced cheerful words tasted like cardboard in my mouth.  
  
A quick rummage in my backpack produced a small Campus notebook and a ball-point pen – the cheap kind that you could grab a dozen for 2.50 at any convenient store, the kind that Emma preferred.  
  
“Now you could even start your own dream diary.” Fake. “I even read somewhere that if you write down the nightmares and burn the page, you could chase them away.” Lies.  
  
The silence was suffocating.  
  
I didn’t know what I hoped to achieve with all of this. It was just an impulsive thought that struck my mind when I saw the familiar notebook brand on display through the bus window. Emma liked these dotted lines since it helped her draw perfect squares and isosceles triangle, and they happened to make a neat board for her weird version of 5-in-a-row tic-tac-toe with no board size restriction.  
  
It was a little game that we invented while messing around with a go board on display at a hobby shop. Emma was so frustrated at being unable to win a single game of the 3x3 version that she decided to, ah… play by her own rules.  
  
 _“Five Xs or Os in a straight line and you win.”  
  
“It didn’t count if it was blocked on both sides by my X!”  
  
“You’re blocked by the edge so it doesn’t count either!”_  
  
It was a childish thing that turned into our unique little game. A game that only we knew how to play - something that made the ten-year-old me feel like we were the two smartest kids at school.  
  
A memento of the past whose half had been lost forever.  
  
I placed the notebook and the pen on the small table next to Emma's bed.  
  
…  
  
…  
  
…  
  
The sound of the door opening broke the suffocating silence in the room. A nurse walked in with one hand holding a notepad and the other pulling a trolley. She proceeded to walk straight towards Emma’s bed, the slight nod of her head when she looked at me was the only indication of her acknowledging my presence. Woodenly, I returned the same gesture.  
  
The nurse shook Emma's shoulder, calling her to wake up and take her medication. I was painfully made aware of the white bottles on the top shelf of the trolley. Dozen of multi-colored pills so much like Skittles candies. Too bad we could not pour them all out and rearrange them into piles of different colors. It was another of Emma’s favorite game, buying dozen of cheap Skittle packs and pouring them all out in a large bowl. We would sort them into neat piles and eat them while browsing the movie library on her internet TV and watch whatever caught our interest.  
  
I was jealous, you know? Imagine your best friend following the words of a complete stranger while she hardly responded to anything I said.  
  
Even if Emma’s hand robotically took the pills from the nurse's hand and swallowed them dry. The cup of water offered was completely ignored.  
 _“Yuck! Why are medicines so bitter?”_  
  
Even if those lids lifted to reveal a pair of dull, soulless eyes staring at nothingness.  
 _“I spy with my little eyes, someone with a pair of silly round glasses.”_  
  
Even if the nurse opened Emma’s gown and washed the white cloth in the luke-warm water in the plastic basin.  
Scars.  
Stitches.  
Burn marks.  
 _“When I grow up I’m going to be a model!”_  
  
Again, I was a coward. Again, I turned away and left.  
  


\---***---

  
“You ever feel like you don’t deserve something? Like you are given something that should have belonged to another?”  
  
The girl turned to stare at me like I had grown a second head. The brown strands peeking out from under the white hood swayed lightly in the winds. The half-burnt cigarette in her mouth turned upward.  
  
“Sorry, bad question.”  
  
…  
  
…  
  
…  
  
“I just visited a friend of mine.”  
  
“Oh? Do tell.” A joking tone, trying to lighten the moods.  
  
“She’s on floor 4.”  
  
“Oh.” An awkward silence. “I’m sorry. I can’t…”  
  
“It’s okay. If you can’t do it, you can’t do it. Wouldn’t be fair to blame you for something out of your control.”  
  
The girl clutched the red scarf on her neck tightly, seemingly trying to shrink further into herself. I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her next to me. Seemed like it was all I could do these days, being a burden on everyone. Couldn’t fix anything. Couldn’t save anyone. Couldn’t make anyone happy.  
  
“I do feel it sometimes.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Having something I don’t deserve.”  
  
Well, ‘you learn something everyday’ and all that. I pulled the girl into a one-arm hug. The forgotten cigarettes sizzled with it’s dying ember in the pool of rainwater on the ground. The damp air at the top of the hospital building felt like a cool bottle of mineral water fresh off the vendor, and I felt my old backpack becoming just a bit lighter on my shoulders.  
  
“Thank you.”

  
\---***---


	2. The girl in the dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Am I dreaming, or am I awake?

It was a strange sight; gazing at the rumbling gray clouds decorated with streaks of silver and thousands of raindrop racing backward as I fell.  
  
It was one of the few things I liked about my dream. A flash of melancholic tranquility tinged with an indescribable sense of longing. As if I was looking at an old album book unearthed from the dusty depth of the attic, its photos yellowed from ignorance and time, decorated with blurred faces I can no longer remember.  
  
Soon enough, looming shapes of grey rushed pass me from behind, converging on the precious patch of the sky like a pack of hungry beasts and swallowed it whole, engulfing my descend in inky darkness. The sensation of wind and raindrops caressing my skin faded, replaced by tendrils of black satin wrapping around my body, slowly tightening up like a cocoon till I could no longer feel letting out a breathe.  
  
An explosion of lights and colors, and my eyes opened to the dream.  
  
For a moment, everything was hazy. Patches of colors and wriggling lines spasming in and out of focus, as if I was looking at a painting someone had carelessly left to the mercy of the summer drizzle. They danced around my vision for a few seconds, before coalescencing into solid shapes.  
  
Into a broken world.  
  
Everything was constantly shifting between various states of decay and ruination. Broken. Rusted. Rotten. So much so that my head felt dizzy if I tried to focus on a spot for more than a few seconds, yet I was somehow acutely aware of everything.  
  
The room was medium-sized, one of the only definite features being the pristine white bed I was sitting on. Sometimes I could see large cracks lining up the walls and ceiling, zig-zagging as if strokes of lightning were tearing through surface, leaving dust and debris hovering thickly in the air, blinking into existence one moment and vanishing from sight the next. Sometimes a large chunk of the room would disappear, giving way to the pouring rain soaking the concrete rubbles and broken steel spikes jutting inward. Some the glass panel doors would explode in a supernova of crystal shards gleaming with sunlight before water swept into the room, like…like…  
  
…like…what?  
  
A sigh escaped my lips. Something about the dream made my mind conjure up a myriad of images I could never make sense of. Pebbles with pretty hairline cracks in the remains of a campfire. Shreds of old magazines and dead leaves that hadn’t finished burning among the pile of ash. Fitting together the border and corner puzzle pieces one by one. Reaching back into the box for the next one, yet none remained but a picture of void and empty space framed by slivers of green earth and blue sky.  
  
There was a time I would believe the dream was trying to tell me something. A message. A warning. A premonition. Maybe if I could pull together the right memories, I could fix this broken dream world. Find myself again. Reclaim the Emma Barnes I was supposed to be.  
  
Now I no longer bothered with indulging that fragile hope. No longer playing along with these treasure hunts and not expecting to find anything. There was no point in digging deeper into these visions, as the bubbling water surface filled your view under the pile of rubbles. As each of your fingers and toes got wrapped in oily rag and burnt to blackened bones like birthday candles. As thousands upon thousand of insects merrily feasted on your body.  
  
Now, I only wanted to wake up.  
  
A tug of my wrist confirmed the object was still there. A small white wristband, something I recognized as those people used to secure an I.V. drip. My eyes traveled along the transparent tube filled with an inky, pulsating liquid over a crooked stand beside the bed and extending to somewhere on the impossible ceiling before dangling down to something obscured by the blanket from where I was lying.  
  
I didn't need to look to know it was still there.  
  
'She' was still there.  
  
A lump of shadow stood against the wall, its form constantly fading in and out of sight. It was like a cloud of gray smoke held together in a mockery of a person. The I.V. drip had turned into thorny rope somewhere along its line, coiling itself around where her 'neck' would be like a noose.  
  
The figure wasn't always there when I enter the dream, but I could never see her move. She just stood there silently against the background of writhing chaos, unchanging like everything I touch in the dream; her 'face' held no feature but a dipped line of gray in approximation of a frown directed at me. I turned to the other direction, unwilling to look at her any further.  
  
Since the first day I entered this dream, I was never scared of her, not really. The shadow felt achingly similar, and I felt like something grasping at my heart every time I look at it. An overwhelming sadness tinged with familiarity overcame my mind from something I didn't know, or couldn't remember. I couldn’t bear to look at her for more than a few second, and the figure never moved from her spot or respond to any of my questions, so I had resigned to ignoring her like just another piece of furniture in the room.  
  
My eyes landed on the balcony, surprisingly intact and pristine, its glass panels left slightly ajar and curtain fluttering slightly to an invisible wind.  
  
With a bit of effort, I pushed the blanket aside and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I felt around with my feet until a pair of white sandals appeared under my toes. Wobbly, I stood up as the floor turned solid. The bed and its clean blanket soundlessly crumbled behind me, joining the rest of the room in its ruination. But I didn’t pay it any mind. My shakings hands gingerly swept the curtain aside, the rough fabric felt coarse and irritating like sandpaper against my skin. But I didn’t pay it any mind. All there was was a burning curiosity, a sudden desire to see what was beyond these doors, the intensity of which befuddled and almost frightened me.  
  
The glass doors slid open.  
  
The sky was pitch black with neither stars nor moon. Instead, angry red line writhed and squirmed in swirly patterns like strangely shaped cracks of reality, bleeding a substance somehow even darker than the night onto the crooked, misshapen gray building sprouted jaggedly all around me like a cursed forest.  
  
I didn’t know what I expected from the dream. I didn’t know why I even _expected_ anything from this broken world. I extended my hand outside the balcony, catching the substance before it slowly slid of my palm like black mud. Unbiddenly, I felt my eyes salted with tears. Big, hot drops of a foreign feeling traveled down my cheeks as I held a palmful of mud to my chest. I didn’t even care as my knee buckled under the sudden weight and my legs finally gave in.  
  
Before someone caught me in their arms.  
  
I looked up and saw her. Her smoky skin felt cold to the touch, but not unpleasantly so, like the shine of a full moon on a summer night. Her grief-stricken frown eased itself into and almost tender, sad expression. It could see the thorns of the noose digging deeply into her neck, but she didn’t seem to be in any pain. With a surprising strength and gentleness, she brought me back to my bed in a bridal carry and laid me down. Her left hand smoothed over my tangled hair as her right pulled the blanket over me, tucking me in like a mother would her child.  
  
With a jerk of her ‘head’ as if suddenly remembering something, she reached to somewhere behind her back to produce a clump of smoke and extending it to me.  
  
I gave her a questioning look. ‘For me?’  
  
The figure nodded, shaking her hand slightly in encouragement.  
  
I gingerly touched the clump of smoke, feeling it solidifying into something flat on my hand. A small notebook. With a glace, I read the cover.  
  


_‘To Emma_

_From your best friend,_

_T………………..’_

  
The last name was obscured by some sort of white mist that didn’t go away as I swiped my finger over it. I turned toward the figure, only to see that she had turned away, seemingly intending to go back to her position against the wall.  
  
A sudden panic filled my heart and my hand shoot out of the blanket to grip at the helm of her ‘clothes’. Sudden tears threatened to overflow again. A silent conversation crossed the space between us.  
  
‘Please stay with me’  
  
A soft, almost imperceptible sign filled with affection. ‘Okay’  
  
A cool hand rested on my forehead as she kneeled beside my bed, humming to me a melody I couldn’t remember. ‘Go to sleep’  
  
My eyelids felt heavy, but I struggled against the sudden sleepiness to stare at her. ‘Be here when I come back?’  
  
As I slowly lost the fight against wakefulness, I could glean from the crack of my eyes, her head bobbing slightly in a nod.  
  


\---***---

  
_This is the fourth floor. The door is opening._  
  
The pre-recorded message played with a soft chime as the elevator opened, waking me from my slumber. Out of habit, my index finger moved under the blanket, tracing an invisible line on the bed sheet as if magically sliding open the metal doors down the corridor. The sound of clanking shoes on ceramic-tiled floor and trolley wheels rickety-rickety in their axle echoed against the pasted walls, like a weary collector dragging their cart and cling-clang with their cups and bottles down the empty hallway.  
  
I clamped down on the memories taking over, pushing with all my might in a futile effort to close the flood gates.  
  
I much preferred the broken world of my dream to this nightmare of wakefulness. Where I was forced to remember. To feel. To relive the pain over and over again. My skin crawled in a sudden feeling of itchiness washing over. It felt like I was wearing the skin of someone else under the bandage. Stained. Dirty. Disgusting.  
  
I took a glance at the metal cabinet by my bedside where a bottle of hand sanitizer stood, almost emptied and ready to be thrown out.  
  
Just one more wouldn't hurt, right?  
  
My eyes quickly darted around the room before landing on the electronic clock. 16:00. No one would check in for at least another hour.  
  
One more time wouldn't hurt.  
  
Carefully, I cupped my left hand under pump shaft thing, squeezed my eyes shut and pressed down.  
  
The dripping feeling on the skin of my palm made me almost made her want to vomit. The bruises on my hands ached and almost made me knock the bottle over. The feeling of a hot knife in my stomach, stabbing and twisting repeatedly as if to pull my guts out. I bit my lip and tried to focus on the cooling sensation spreading on my skin as I rubbed the liquid over my palms. A half-forgotten sing-song sound filled my head, chiming, echoing like two voices giggling happily together.  
  


_…tops and bottoms, tops and bottoms,_

_in between, in between,_

_all around our hands, all around our hands,..._

  
The runny substance smelled faintly of strawberry, which was different. Different was good. The last one carried a heavy stench of alcohol. The nurse had immediately thrown it out when I collapsed on myself, shaking, crying, screaming.  
  
I tried to relish in the sensation for however brief it lasted.  
  
Why couldn't this room have a bathroom? With a large bathtub, like at home. Or just a shower might do. I hated this sticky feeling all over her body. It made my skin crawl, like being covered from head to toes in mud and grime. I would scrub, scrub, scrub myself, until this nauseating feeling would go away.  
  
The cooling sensation finally faded, and I felt it again. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty.  
  
My eyes opened once more, taking the sight around me.  
  
The blanket. The window drapes. The stack of towels neatly placed on the cabinet.  
  
So white. So clean. Just like new.  
  
I didn't want to be here. I didn't deserve to be here.  
  
I looked to the door to the small balcony, the shock resistant glass allowed a clear view of the blue sky outside. Shapes of clouds hurriedly passed by like strangers. I could only vaguely recall a time I would sit on the set of swings hanging from the tree in the lawn of my house. Idly nudging the seat back and forth with the tip of my shoes. Watching the clouds peaking over the top of high-rises and trying to make out all sort of animals and funny shapes from the drifting white fluffs. Chatting.  
  
I wanted to feel it closer, the feeling of gentle breeze caressing my skin and combing through my hair, the metal railings cold to the touch like stepping on blocks of ice. But the sliding doors had been bolted shut, unbudging, after last time.  
  


_…tops and bottoms, tops and bottoms,_

_in between, in between,_

_all around our hands, all around our hands,..._

  
I gripped the bottle of sanitizer tightly in my hand, overwhelmed with this feeling of rocks pressing on my chest.  
  
Why did it have to be me!? Why did it have to be me!? It wasn’t fair!!!  
  
I wanted to throw it. I wanted to throw something. To smash something. To tear. To break. Anyhting to get rid of this pain.  
  
A flash of blue and white stripes entered my vision. A small Campus notebook and a ball-point pen.  
  
Gingerly, I picked the items from the small table next to my bed, the forgotten bottle rolling to touch the balcony door.  
  


_‘To Emma_

_From your best friend,_

_Taylor’_

  
I clutched the small notebook to my chest and cried.


End file.
